Winnie insisted that Malcolm Douglas must have been thinking of the practising of this cadet drum corps when he wrote:
“And all of the people for blocks around,
Boom-tidera-da-boom!
Kept time at their tasks to the martial sound,
Boom-tidera-da-boom!
While children to windows and stoops would fly,
Expecting to see a procession pass by,
And they couldn’t make out why it never drew nigh,
With its boom-tidera-da—boom-a-diddle-dee;
Boom-tidera-da-boom!
It would seem such vigor must soon abate;
Boom-tidera-da-boom!
But they still keep at it, early and late;
Boom-tidera-da-boom!
So if it should be that a war breaks out,
They’ll all be ready, I have no doubt,
To help in putting the foe to rout,
With their boom-tidera-da-boom—
Boom-tidera-da-boom—
Boom-tidera-da—boom-a-diddle-dee,
Boom-Boom-Boom!”
Stacey was seventeen, tall for his age, with a little feathery mustache outlining his finely cut upper lip. He was elegant in appearance and manners, and we all admired and liked him with the exception of perverse, wilful Milly. Jim was thirteen and small for his years. The life of privation which he had led during a period when he had been lost, the account of which has been given in the previous volume, had stunted his growth, and given him an appearance of delicacy. But Jim was wiry, and possessed great endurance, and his drilling that evening was noticeable for its accuracy and spirit. Adelaide and Jim were deeply attached to one another. They wrote each other long letters every week, remarkable for their perfect confidence. As Jim’s letters give an insight not only into his life at the cadet school, but also into the relations which subsisted between several of the cadets and members of our own school, as well as into a contretemps which introduced great consternation into the Catacomb Party, I will choose two from Adelaide’s packet and insert them before describing the mystic entertainment of the Council of Ten.
Letter No. 1.
Dear Sister:
I like the barracks better than I did. I almost have gotten over being homesick, and the fellows are awfully nice now that I have come to know them. I miss mother, but I would rather die than let any one know it. I’ve put her photograph down at the bottom of my trunk, for it gave me the snuffles to see it, and Stacey Fitz Simmons caught me kissing it once, and I was so ashamed. He is one of the nicest fellows here, and he didn’t rough me a bit about it, only whistled, and said: “You’ve got a mighty pretty mother; I guess she takes after your sister. Pity there wasn’t more beauty left for the rest of the family.” He knows you, and I guess you must remember meeting him when you visited the Roseveldts last summer at Narragansett Pier. He asked if you and Milly Roseveldt were at the same school, and would I please send his regards when I wrote. He is one of the Senior A boys, and is going to college next year. I am only Middle C, but he is ever so good to me, I am sure I don’t know why. We are drilling, drilling all the time now for the annual drill at the Seventh Regiment Armory.
Stacey is an awfully good fellow. He’s the head of everything. He’s drum-major, and you just ought to see him in his uniform leading the drum corps [Jim spelled it core]. He’s the cockatoo of the school. Stacey’s folks are rich, and his mother wrote the military tailor not to spare expense, but to get Stacey up just as fine as they make ’em, and I don’t believe there’s a drum-major of any of the crack regiments that can hold a candle to him for style. In the first place he has a high furry hat that looks like the big muffs they carried at the old folks’ concerts. Then he has a bright scarlet coat all frogged and padded and laced with lots of gold cord, and the nattiest trousers and patent leather boots. But his baton—oh, Adelaide! words cannot express. I don’t believe old Ahasuerus ever had a sceptre half as gorgeous, with a great gold ball on the top, and it will do your eyes good to see him swing it. Doesn’t he put on airs, though! Put on isn’t the word, for Stacey is airy naturally, and dignified, too. Buttertub says he walks as if he owned the earth. When he marches backward holding his baton crosswise, I’m always afraid that he will fall and that somebody might laugh, and that would kill him. But he never does fall. He seems to see with the buttons on the small of his back, and he stepped over a banana skin while marching to the armory just as dandified as you please. And he never fails to catch his baton when he tosses it into the air, and makes it whirl around twice before it comes down. He never bows to any of the fellows or seems to see them—except me. They are going to have Gilmore’s Band at the drill, and Stacey was practising leading them around the armory. I was in the lower balcony, hanging over and watching him. He was going through his fanciest evolutions when he passed me. He looked straight ahead and never winked an eye. I didn’t think he saw me till I heard him say, “How’s that, dear boy?” and I clapped so hard that I nearly fell over.
Buttertub hates Stacey; he wanted to be drum-major himself.
He calls Stacey wasp-waist, but it only calls attention to his own big stomach. He is always eating, and he won’t train, and he can’t run without having a fit of apoplexy. He weighs too much for the crew and he can’t even ride a bicycle, or do anything except the heavy work on the foot ball team and study. Yes, he can study; that’s the disgusting part.